Markus Vinzent's Blog

Thursday, 8 December 2011

Review of Mark Edwards on my book on 'Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity'

The publishers kindly sent me through a review that was published in 'Church Times' on 2 December 2011:

Mark Edward picks up the question of the 'argumentum e silencio', on which I entirely agree. And he is absolutely right, silence can mean both that people believed or did not believe in the Resurrection. To assume, therefore, as a principle that they did believe in the Resurrection right from the start, as hundreds of years of scholarship and schoolbooks let us know, is therefore not the only true option. The other has not been seen yet, and therefore, is being tried out here in this book.
Now, if we have two potential options - it comes down to, how to way the arguments. As I admit in the book, sheer silence (especially in homiletic literature) could mean both, but the interesting element which is not highlighted in the review is that all the many texts that are dealt with in this book do talk about salvation, talk about incarnation, talk about death and sacrifice and that these are the salvific acts of Christ. Moreover, as I show in chapter 3 - Easter, Baptism and Sunday have been centered around Christ's death, so that, for example, up until the end of the second century there was only one unanimous definition for Easter, namely the celebration of Christ's death. Does this not let the pendulum swing towards the proposed solution?

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About Me

I am passionate about history, philosophy, late antique and medieval theologies, the way our current world came about, and how to understand it, in order to shape it for future generations. The role of religions seems to be paramount for a global success of a harmonic living together of people of different wakes, life-styles, cultures and ambitions. Please do join this blog, as it gives insights into my research and the questions that occupy me.